TUESDAY JANUARY 25 2000      PUBLISHED BY CHINA DAILY
                                                           CITY NEWS

Elevated rail still in track-laying stage
CONSTRUCTION workers are laying normal track along the first phase of the city's first elevated rail, which is expected to be completed in the third quarter of this year.

Drugs in mail
MIND your mail, Shanghai Customs warned recently.

Carmival mood in Yangtze ballroom
FUNNY costumes and weird make-up, hugging, drinking and dancing. The specially decorated Crystal Ballroom of the Yangtze New World Hotel became a sea of some 400 revelling expatriates and local people on Saturday night.

Water transport services safe for Spring Festival
SPRING Festival, which means a peak in the numbers travelling by sea, begins on Thursday and will last forty days.

Legal services market to heat up
WHILE China's imminent entry to the WTO spells a great opportunity for the development of China's legal profession, it must restructure to meet the challenges, according to a seminar sponsored recently by Shanghai-based AllBright Law Offices.

Survey:drinkable water at low ebb
LOCAL government officials are stepping up efforts to push forward a general survey of local water resources, that targets rivers, lakes and reservoirs.

Blast-hit road reopens No deaths, no injuries from gas explosion
AFTER 23 hours' hard work, repairs to the broken gas pipes which exploded on Saturday morning at the intersection of Gonghexin and Luochuandong roads was completed on Sunday morning.

4 years for date-raping 17-year-old
AN employee of Shanghai's City of Books was recently sentenced to four years' imprisonment by Pudong New Area People's Court for raping a girl last year.

A ride on the wrong side of the law
IT had to happen. As a frequent user of the city's taxi cabs I have often been able to curl a scornful lip at the poor souls who are sitting in a cab which has been pulled over by a traffic policeman. There they sit in lonely splendour while the driver - depending on the demeanour of the officer of the law and the real or alleged seriousness of the offence - either engages in much armwaving and fingerpointing, or cowers, as he, or she, fishes for licence and permit.


Trash-picker who steals bag quickly arrested
A MIGRANT woman who allegedly stole a handbag while collecting trash was recently arrested by Putuo Police on a charge of theft.

Ambitious young man dies in Germany
I REALLY don't know how I have come through these past four months. Every day when the sun rises, I long for the darkness, so that I may be shrouded in sleep. But when the night does come, I long for the day, for I cannot sleep."

Merger brings first exhibition JV
By Ada King

THE first local Sino-foreign exhibition joint venture was formed in Shanghai last week after the merger of two established exhibition services firms.

The 51/49 joint venture - Shanghai Shangya Trade Exhibition & Promotion Co Ltd (STEP) - will mainly devote itself to exhibition services in the domestic market, especially in Shanghai, according to the newly-launched firm's officials.

STEP was jointly launched by the Shanghai-based International Trade and Promotion Corporation - the exhibition arm of the Shanghai Commission on Foreign Economic Relations and Trade and the Hong Kong-based Adsale Exhibition Services Ltd. The merger is contracted for 15 years.

STEP general manager, Jiang Shuyuan, said the exhibition industry will experience big growth when China's entry of WTO is assured in the near future. This will give the exhibition industry a golden opportunity for business expansion.

"We will make full use of the advantages our parents provide in the domestic and overseas markets in our business development," said Jiang.

Copyright 2000 by Shanghai Star. All rights reserved.